Effect of non-classic nitrogen fertilizers on soil chemical properties, growth of zucchini plants and N2O emission

Abstract

The climate is changing and communities all over the world are affected. Changing climate cause severe negative impacts on the natural resources and consequently on food and livelihood security. As such societies need to learn to cope with the changes predicted, warmer temperatures, drier soils, changes in weather extremes and rising sea levels. Therefore, a field experiment was conducted during two successive summer seasons of 2014 and 2015 under open field conditions at Dokki protected cultivation experimental site, Agricultural Research Center (ARC), Egypt. The study aimed to test the effect of non-classic N fertilizer forms such as coffee husk (organic waste), humic acid (organic acid) and proline (amino acid) as compared to ammonium nitrate (traditional mineral fertilizer), through ground and foliar applications, on some soil chemical properties of the studied clay soil i.e. pH, ECe, chemically available concentrations of N, P and K. Growth and yield parameters of zucchini plants were also studied. In addition, greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission from different applied nitrogen fertilization types and its impact on warming and air pollution were calculated. Data revealed that the treatment of coffee husk can replace, at least partially, the traditional mineral fertilizer; can increase soil fertility, growth and yield of growing plants, and reduce GHGs emission. Also, proline and humic acid can consider as activator of phytohormones and growth substances, and recover the effect due to unfavorable climatic conditions or stresses. Obtained values of CO2 emission varied between 984 for coffee husk treatment and 1629 kg ha-1 for mineral fertilizer treatment which increased air pollution.